END GILEE Petition

President Brian Blake, Dean of the Andrew Young College of Policy Studies Thomas Vicino, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology Chair Leah Daigle, Dr. Deepak Raghavan, & the Board of Trustees

We are calling for an immediate end to the police exchange program at Georgia State called GILEE. This program has seen police officers travel to Israel to bring the exact same tactics police and the IDF have used on Palestinians to us in Atlanta. It has deep ties to Cop City and the ongoing militarization of the police. That is why we call on GSU to do the following:

  1. End the GILEE Program
  2. Divest from Cop City
  3. Re-Invest in Student's Needs

Please sign this petition and get involved in the coalition partners looking to end this program!

Please sign this petition and help us put an end to this terrible program!

Full Petition Text

To: President Brian Blake, Dean of the Andrew Young College of Policy Studies Thomas Vicino, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology Chair Leah Daigle, Dr. Deepak Raghavan, & the Board of Trustees
From: [Your Name]

We, the undersigned members of the END GILEE Coalition at GSU and the broader community at Georgia State University, urgently call on the university to end its sprawling investments in carceral projects, including, but not limited to, the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program (GILEE), Cop City, and the Atlanta Police Foundation.

The university heavily invests in policing, surveillance, islamophobia and other forms of state violence that historically and contemporarily have a disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities, who comprise most of the school's population. Further, these investments are facilitating a disturbing role in the gentrification and displacement of poor and working-class communities of color. While the institution increases funding for GSU Police Department (GSUPD) and collaborates with Georgia Power on expanding surveillance, countless departments face budget cuts that reduce the educational capacity of the university.

As an institution that prides itself on high Black student graduation rates and one of the most diverse student bodies in the country, GSU contradicts its stated values through its participation in deadly law enforcement exchanges with the apartheid state of Israel, its role in gentrification, over-policing, and "urban renewal" in Downtown Atlanta, and its complicity in the expansion of the prison-industrial complex. These actions directly harm the very communities GSU claims to uplift, exposing the deep-seated duplicity of its administration.

We call on Georgia State University to:

1. End the GILEE Program (Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange) which has deep ties to Israeli police and Cop City, spreading hyper-militarized repression tactics across the U.S. Through this program, American police departments are trained in the violent tactics of Israeli apartheid and the ongoing genocide of Palestinians—bringing these brutal practices to the streets of Atlanta.

2. Divest from the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) & Stop Cop City by Severing ties with the APF including board members, institutional sponsorships and collaborations, and donations to APF; Ending all investment in Cop City, including President M. Brian Blake's involvement with the Atlanta Committee for Progress and Georgia State University Foundation donations; and Divesting from all parties supporting Cop City (listed here) and police foundations nationally (detailed in this report).

3. Re-Invest in Student Needs by doing more to guarantee student workers and faculty a livable wage, address Atlanta’s glaring housing crisis by building more dorms, provide comprehensive health insurance and mental health support, ensure food security for its community, strengthen environmental protections, and take further action to support students and workers.

Full Petition Text: https://ydsagsu.org/petitiontext/